Word: rovere
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Before the little rover can traverse the Martian surface, of course, it must reach the Martian surface, and that won't be easy. The 1,300-lb. spacecraft will slam into the planet's atmosphere at 16,300 m.p.h., ultimately causing it to experience deceleration forces of 20 Gs. The vehicle's cork-and-silicon aeroshell should absorb most of this body blow. Both a parachute and a retrorocket will slow its plunge, and an array of airbags will inflate to cushion the shock of landing. And finally, the spacecraft will simply drop to the surface, striking the ground like...
...Pathfinder survives its inelegant touchdown unscathed, NASA scientists will waste no time getting to work. After the spacecraft gets its bearings, they'll send it a signal causing it to open up, revealing the papoose-like Sojourner rover inside. A camera on the lander will snap a picture of both the car and the landscape, and by 6 p.m. on the West Coast, NASA hopes to release the image both to the press and on the Web mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/) After that, it will at last be time for Brian Cooper to take the wheel...
...Sojourner control console at J.P.L. is equipped with a 24-in. video monitor, a 3-D mouse and a set of stereoscopic goggles. Before the rover leaves the lander, its camera will scan the terrain and transmit what it sees to J.P.L., where software will combine the images into a three-dimensional vista. Donning the goggles, Cooper and other scientists will then scout the virtual riverbed. When they find a likely place for Sojourner to visit, they'll start up the car and, using the mouse, tell it where...
...going will be slow. Commands from Cooper's computer will take 11 minutes to travel from Pasadena to Mars; it will take another 11 minutes for the rover to acknowledge that it has received the instruction. To prevent Sojourner from blundering into a chasm or over a cliff, engineers designed it to move no faster than 1.3 ft. per minute. Onboard gyroscopes and lasers will help it feel for dangers the camera might have missed. If Sojourner spots an obstacle, it will try to avoid it or simply stop. "We'll give it a point...
Painstaking as the rover's exploration of Ares Vallis will be, it should be worth the effort. The water that flooded the valley billions of years ago came from all over the planet, carrying all manner of rocks with it. Sojourner will pick through this geological boneyard, photographing the remains and using X-ray spectrometers to study their composition...